


Across Enemy Lines

by Margaery



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1402474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margaery/pseuds/Margaery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rafa comes to Andy with some worrying news. They're going to have to work together to get through this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across Enemy Lines

It all starts when Andy gets a cryptic text.

_we need to talk_

He stares at it for a moment, then sticks his head around the corner. “Rafa, dude, I know that was you. Can’t prank me again.”

Feli and Ferru, intent on their videogame, don’t even glance up from the sofa, but Rafa, sitting nearby, is frowning down at his phone. He doesn’t look like he’s playing pranks. He looks unnerved.

“You okay?” Andy says, belatedly. Actually, Rafa looks almost ill. Fuck, this is going to be something like ‘my knee fucked, I gonna withdraw from the tournament’ or ‘my knee so fucked, I gonna retire’ or ‘Kim gonna run off to Barbados with me’. (Not that Andy’s, you know, that _worried_ about the last one, because Kim inexplicably loves his sorry arse, but it seems like it belongs in that set of dire possibilities.) 

Rafa looks up, his eyebrows still doing complicated things. “We need to talk.”

Fuck, it does sound serious. “Now?”

“No,” Rafa says, shaking his head. “Now is tennis. I come to your hotel later?”

“Yeah, sure,” Andy says, still bemused.

“PUTA!” Ferru yells at the videogame. Feli leans his head against Ferru’s shoulder, laughing.

Andy texts Kim on the way back to his locker. _if u decided to run off to barbados w rafa u wld tell me 1st right_

~

“What’s all this about running off to Barbados?” Kim asks, after leaning up to kiss him hello.

Andy tosses his gear bag down next to the hotel TV. “Rafa’s acting funny.”

Kim laughs. “And that means he’s about to run off with me?”

“Maybe,” Andy says. “He’s hot, rich, and famous. You could do worse.”

Kim loops her arms loosely around his neck. “Mmm. True. But you’re overlooking something.”

Even after eight years, her being this close shorts Andy’s mind out. He’s not sure it’s normal to still be this much in love with somebody eight years on. But he’ll take it. “Yeah?”

“Xisca,” Kim tells him, smiling. “Xisca would have something to say about it.”

Xisca looks harmless, but Andy knows that doesn’t guarantee anything. “Rafa’s coming over to talk. If you’re not running off with him, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Well, I’m on my way out,” Kim says, letting him go after another quick kiss. “Don’t do anything crazy while I’m gone.”

“He’s not bringing Nando or Pico, it should be fine.” 

At least Andy doesn’t think he’s bringing Nando or Pico. Oh fuck, what if the problem is ‘ _Pico_ gonna run off to Barbados with me, help us stop Xisca from killing us’? For all the recent photoshops of Andy as James Bond, he really doesn’t know how to do spy stuff. And he knows nothing about Barbados. (Although come to think of it, why does Barbados keep popping into his brain? Maybe his brain’s trying to tell him he should take a holiday. …Though not to Barbados, if Rafa and Pico are hiding out in a love nest there and Xisca’s marauding the beaches intent on revenge.)

“Oh, Andy,” Kim says, from the door, breaking into his worries.

“Yeah?”

She smiles. “I already have one hot, rich, and famous boyfriend. A second would just be greedy.”

Andy knew there was a reason he loved this woman.

~

“This is my question,” Rafa says.

He’s sitting on Andy’s hotel sofa, leaning forward, his hands clasped around his knees. Right before he arrived, Andy’d had a moment’s worry about just how he was supposed to be a proper host in a hotel room stocked primarily with water and tennis gear, but then he’d remembered that Rafa is just about the most easy-going person ever. (Also, depending on just what Rafa’s come about, the usual hospitable offerings might be unwise. You shouldn’t drive a getaway car if you’ve just had champagne from the minibar, for example. Even if they do it in films sometimes.)

Rafa looks far too preoccupied for social niceties anyway. He’s fallen silent, chewing his lip, eyebrows drawn down.

“Yeah?” Andy prompts.

Rafa starts, as if he’d forgotten Andy was there. Andy can see him hesitate. “My question - is your mother… with somebody?”

Now that, Andy had not been expecting. He promptly inhales the water he’d been drinking.

When he finishes coughing up a lung, he eyes Rafa warily. “Are you asking me if my mum’s _dating_ someone?” he asks, just to be sure. Maybe Rafa’s got his English mixed up. Maybe he meant, hey, I don’t see your mum around, is she with Kim on her trip to that art gallery?

But Rafa’s nodding. “Yes. Your mother, she is with somebody?”

For all his Barbados thoughts, Andy’d never considered _this_ possibility. “Uh, Rafa,” he starts, not sure where to begin. “Look, ummmm…” Rafa’s sitting patiently on his sofa, waiting for Andy to recover his grip on his own native tongue. “You can’t date my mum. Um, yeah, that can’t happen.”

Rafa’s eyebrows go back up.

“Not that you’re not a great guy,” Andy adds hurriedly, “but, you know, she’s my _mum_.”

He’s obstinately trying not to think about his mum in Barbados, walking hand-in-hand with Rafa. That thought’s gonna scar. 

“Andy,” Rafa says, “I don’t wanna try and date your mother.”

Andy lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Oh god.” He scowls at Rafa. “Stop pranking me. That one wasn’t funny, it was just mean. Do you want me to date _your_ mum?”

Rafa blanches, and Andy feels the satisfaction of getting some of his own back. “I was not asking for me. Me, I am happy. I only want to know.”

If he’s not asking for himself…Andy puts two and two together and makes four. “Did Feli send you?” He groans. “Mum doesn’t mean that, she’s just joking.” (She might mean it. But Andy’s not thinking about that, lalalalala.) “Besides, I thought he…” He makes a general gesture.

“Feli and Ferru are happy too,” Rafa says, unflappably. He’s dealing with this conversation much more calmly than Andy is. But then, it involves Andy’s mum’s _dating habits_ , so Andy’s inclined to give himself a pass. There are some things no child should be forced to think about.

“Feli doesn’t want to date my mum?” he asks, just to make sure.

Rafa grins. “Probably he will say so. Feli, he likes to tease. What I can say is he and Ferru are happy, so your mother, I think she is safe.”

“That’s good,” Andy says, daring to breathe again. A Feli bent on maternal conquest would be a horrible thought. Besides the … dating bit, which Andy is skipping over entirely, thank you very much, what if they’d got serious? Feli at the family Christmas? Feli sitting next to his mum and Dani in his player’s box? Feli joining forces with Jamie to terrorise him?

Andy’s just got to the point where he’s imagining Feli at his mum’s breakfast table drinking coffee and wearing Andy’s own fluffy house slippers, when Rafa mercifully breaks into his nightmare. “I am not asking for me or Feli. But I am still asking.”

“I don’t think so,” Andy says, still distracted by thoughts of Feli. “She’s really busy. She’s almost as busy as me.”

Rafa sighs. It’s profoundly world-weary.

“Why?” Andy asks, belatedly suspicious. “If this isn’t a prank, and you and your friends don’t want to date her, why do you care if my mum’s dating someone?”

Rafa looks at him sideways. He’s chewing his lip again, as if he’s trying to decide something. “Not one of my _friends_ ,” he says at last, as if the words are being dragged out of him.

Andy blinks. He’s not sure what Rafa’s trying to say, but he’s beginning to get a bad feeling about this. (‘Beginning’ may not quite be the right word. Andy’s had a bad feeling about this since that very first text. But then, he’s Scottish. He has bad feelings about things a lot of the time.)

Rafa leans forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. “Andy,” he says, sounding as if he’s about to reveal the universe’s greatest secret, or that the world is about to explode in nuclear armageddon, or that Roland Garros is switching away from clay, “I think your mother, she is dating Toni.”

~

“Maybe Toni was calling you, but I think if you are sleeping with Toni you will tell me by now.”

“Um,” Kim says, from behind them. “Sorry for interrupting, but what the what now?”

Andy nearly jumps out of his skin. (He’s not usually easily startled, but then it’s not every day he has Rafa Nadal sitting at the kitchen table in his hotel suite inhaling a bowl of pasta and telling him about how he thinks Andy’s mum is dating his uncle. In detail. Andy’s a bit preoccupied, is the point.)

Rafa seems less affected. “Hello, Kim,” he says, smiling up at her.

“Andy’s sleeping with Toni?” Kim asks, looking between the two of them, her eyebrow delicately arched.

Andy makes an involuntary noise, and Rafa laughs. “No, no, I don’t think Toni is Andy’s type.” He sobers, probably remembering why he’s here. “It’s…”

When he trails off, looking at Andy, Andy fills in the blank. He doesn’t keep secrets from Kim. And under the circumstances, he’d be glad of some help. “Rafa thinks Mum’s dating Toni.”

He expects Kim to look surprised, to say that isn’t possible. It’s not encouraging that she sets her bags down on the counter and looks thoughtful instead. “Well, maybe that explains why she was talking about open relationships the other day.”

Rafa nods. “Toni believes in this, yes.”

Kim sits down between the two of them and leans her elbows on the table. “Huh. I just thought she was gossiping.”

“This is not happening to me,” Andy says, and lets his forehead thunk down into his arms.

~

It all started at Wimbledon, apparently. He and Rafa are pretty smart, between them – Andy’s seen Rafa’s chess-grandmaster instincts at work on the court, and it’s nice to have them on his side for once. Once they really start looking, it’s easy to find the beginning: a sponsor commitment, for coffee of all things, which had Andy’s mum and Toni serving coffee to the people in the Wimbledon queue.

The pictures are bad enough. The text…

_Murray described Nadal as her “Manuel”, a delightful reference to the bumbling Spanish waiter who featured in many of Basil Fawlty’s capers on the cult British sitcom Fawlty Towers._

_Nadal didn’t dispute the moniker._

_“I cannot make my work as coach (since Rafael lost). I have no player here, so I’m a waiter now. I am Manuel waiter. So I serve coffee, is my new work,” he laughed._

Andy groans and closes the tab, but it’s too late. He’s now imagining them joking together over coffee, stealing glances at each other and flirting. His mother’s a big flirt, and that’s fine, she can be if she wants, as long as it’s not with Feli, but does it have to be with _Toni_?

Rafa’s not doing much better. When Andy looks over, he’s stuck on one of the pictures. Knowing what they do now, it’s virtually dripping with undertone.

“What we gonna do?” Rafa asks, mournfully.

“Maybe we should give up,” Andy says, slumping down in his chair, even though he knows it isn’t good for his back. “My mum’s pretty determined.”

Rafa gets this little wry smirk. “Toni too.”

“We’re pretty determined too, though, right?” Andy says, thoughtfully. “I mean, you came back from your knee injury and kinda destroyed us all. And I’m pretty stubborn, I think.”

Rafa’s smirk widens into a grin. “You say you determined to win Playstation, but you still lose to me all the time. I think you are not that determined.”

Well. Those are fighting words.

~

The problem is, Andy and his mum are rarely in the same place. They’re both very busy people. And it’s not like Andy can do much anyway – Andy’s mum is a grown woman, and if she wants to date Toni, that’s her prerogative. Andy doesn’t have to _like_ it, but it’s not entirely his business.

(It’s also kinda hard for Andy to do anything if he hasn’t yet officially asked his mum about it. He can’t quite figure out how to start that conversation. “So, uh, mum, remember Rafa’s uncle? Are you, uh, going there?” No. Definitely not.)

“He better not say anything about my second serve,” Andy says, darkly, to Kim one night.

Kim just looks at him pityingly. “Babe, even if he’s dating your mum, he’s still Rafa’s uncle. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t pay him to say things about your game.”

“Good,” Andy says, frowning. “It’s getting much better anyway.”

“Of course it is,” Kim tells him, agreeably. “Don’t worry, you’ll find a new coach soon.”

Andy scowls for a minute, because he’s not bereft without Ivan, he’s not, except yeah, he kinda is. He doesn’t _want_ a new coach, he wants the poker-faced hard-arsed old Czech back. And what’s with everyone deserting him these days, anyway? First his mum consorting with the enemy (even if Rafa’s camp doesn’t exactly feel like _enemies_ , but still), and now his coach up and leaving him? 

Kim pats his shoulder.

At least it wasn’t Feli, he thinks. He doesn’t have to face Toni across a net.

~

It all ends when Andy gets a cryptic text.

_hi andy how is italy_

Andy frowns down at his phone for a minute. He doesn’t really think he’s friendly enough with Rafa’s physio for the man to be sending him a text like that. Maymo’s fine – dry humour, Rafa’s shadow, etc. – but Andy’s not even sure what his first name is. 

_uh it’s great_

He’s pretty excited about this tie, actually. He wouldn’t say that they’re overwhelming favourites – it’s no Switzerland vs Kazakhstan – but with Fognini carrying an injury (and being, well, Fognini) and Seppi not in his best form, Andy thinks they’ve got a better-than-decent shot of making it through to the semifinals. Which is pretty great.

_this is rafa, sorry_

Okay, that makes more sense.

_so guess what_

Andy raises an eyebrow. _what_

_we need to talk_

_what_ , Andy texts again, then gives up and calls.

“April Fools!” Rafa says, sounding entirely too cheerful for this early in the morning. But then perhaps he didn’t have a practice at crack of dawn. He’s probably lying out on a beach somewhere and forgot his phone at home, thus having to borrow Maymo’s.

Andy sighs. “You have to actually play a prank first, Rafa. _Then_ you say April Fools.”

“But I did,” Rafa says, sounding (if possible) even more cheerful.

Andy doesn’t like the sound of that. He pulls his laptop over and starts up Twitter. If Rafa’s done something stupid, like announce that he’s going to be Andy’s new coach – or worse, that _Toni_ is – Twitter will know. Twitter always knows.

“Maymo think it was too mean,” Rafa says, thoughtfully – which doesn’t help Andy’s nerves. “But I think it was very good.”

Now Andy’s half-expecting Twitter to tell him that Rafa announced Andy was getting back together with Ivan, or that Rafa tweeted him to fake-congratulate him on getting engaged, but neither’s apparently happened. Nothing’s happened, in fact.

“Okay, fine, tell me,” he says at last. “What was your April Fools prank?”

Rafa hums, and Andy can hear the stifled laughter in his voice. “My question – is your mother…with somebody?”

It only takes Andy a moment. He’s not stupid. “Fuck you,” he says, flat, then hearing Rafa’s laughter, “Fuck you, you fucker, you just wait until I play you next!”

“I take my chances,” Rafa says, gleeful. “We gonna be on clay for a while now.” 

“That doesn’t even count,” Andy tells him, aware that he’s making quite the face at his phone. “You started that _ages_ ago. You can’t start a prank weeks in advance and then announce it on April Fools, that doesn’t count!”

Rafa makes a thoughtful sound. “I think it count. And I am Number 1, I make the rules. When you are Number 1, you make the rules.”

“ _It doesn’t work that way_ ,” Andy says, although it’s kind of hard to work up a truly satisfying head of steam when your overwhelming emotion is relief. “Being Number 1 doesn’t give you power over April Fools rules! And if it really gave you power over rules, you’d have switched the entire tour to clay by now.”

Rafa sounds faintly turned-on when he answers. “I would win everything.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Andy says. “That wasn’t an April Fools prank, that was a cruel prank that’s gonna get payback.”

“Bring it on,” Rafa tells him, sunnily.

“You’d better believe I’m bringing it,” Andy says. “You better run and hide, you fucker, ‘cause I’m gonna fuck you up!”

The last thing he hears before Rafa hangs up on him is Rafa’s laughter, which is just not cool.

What’s even more not cool is the fact that Rafa apparently _told his mum_ , because she calls an hour later, laughing fit to burst.

He texts Kim. _u up for helping me dump rafa’s body in barbados?_

~

“There are more productive ways of improving your chances of winning the French Open,” Kim tells him when she calls him back. (Apparently putting body-disposal plans in writing isn’t such a good idea.) “Like practicing.”

“You heard what he did,” Andy says, trying to let his wounded-ness shine through. It probably just makes him sound pissy.

“Your mum may have called me.”

“So?”

“I think,” Kim says, “that you shouldn’t waste time getting angry. You should think about getting even.”

Which is a good point. Kim always has good points. 

“Perhaps,” Kim says, slowly, “You could pretend that everything’s good, that it was a funny prank, that you forgive him. And then…”

~

_april 1st, 2015_

“I’m not talking to you,” Rafa says. “Never, ever again. I will tell Titín to write it in his notebook. Never, ever talk to Andy ever again.”

Andy grins. Payback is so, so sweet.

“I win,” he says.


End file.
